


Guide Me Home

by Dusty



Series: Conversations In The Car [15]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:37:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty/pseuds/Dusty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a bit of a weird day for her. Fortunately, James is in the business of security.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guide Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Follows directly on from Round And Round The Garden.

Mallory, thankfully, was both late out of a meeting and in a pleasant mood, so Bond’s tardiness was skirted over. He immediately received a long briefing with M and then Q, preparing him for the next day’s mission. It was straight forward enough, but required precision. He felt suitably employed in this assignment, but mused it would have been on the dull side had he not also had other things on his mind. He could focus well enough as required and the day flew by without him really noticing, but the promise of ultimately keeping his proximity to Olivia made his heart flutter in the rare seconds his mind was permitted to wander.

He’d grabbed a sandwich for dinner and was obstinately eating it in Q’s lab, despite protestations, when Moneypenny called through and told him M wanted to see him urgently.

“Now you’re for it,” said Q. “Told you not to get crumbs in the circuitry.”

“Yeah,” said James with his mouth full, sauntering away. “After all this time I’ll get fired for breaking the sandwich rule.”

Q glared at him.

\---

 

 “Go straight in,” said Eve when he arrived. James braced himself. This had all the hallmarks of a bollocking.

“Close the door, OO7,” said Mallory.

James obeyed and stood formally, cleaning his teeth with his tongue.

“Bond, I’ve had a call and I think you’re the best person to handle this,” said Mallory seriously.

“Sir?”

“Our very own Olivia Mansfield is currently on the top deck of the number 15 bus.”

James frowned. His mind swirled. _Why would she be on a bus?_

“Is that against the rules?” he asked, feigning nonchalance.

Mallory gave him a look. “No. She’s allowed to be on a bus. She’s of a certain age and can enjoy free transport. Not sure it befits a Dame Grand Cross, mind.”

“Maybe she just felt like a change.”

Mallory looked at him sympathetically. “Bond, she’s been on the bus for the last 6 hours. “Our man says she’s refusing to get off and just wants to enjoy the journey. She’s sat out the entire route 4 times.”

James tried not to reveal the panic inside him. He’d left her that morning in a far better state than he’d found her, but there was a chance she was still fragile. Hell, there was a chance she was still in her dressing gown, and now he’d have to chase after her across London.

Mallory was studying him. “People are starting to recognise her,” he said plainly.

“Understood, sir,” James said, reaching for his phone.

“Take care of it. And OO7? Observe the rules in Q’s lab or I’ll make you take a polygraph in front of everyone. Dismissed.”

James gave him a sheepish glance. “Sir,” he acknowledged,  before sweeping out of the office with his phone to his ear.

Eve opened her mouth to start a conversation, but he was already gone.

\---

 

She shifted uncomfortably. That rat bag had got a photo, she was sure. She’d just wanted to disappear for a day, be anonymous. She imagined it wouldn’t be too hard, after all, what’s one more white haired lady roaming London, but she may have misjudged the Disney baseball cap. It probably didn’t go with her Marc Jacobs. But at least she was sure now she was being watched – even before the tabloid weasel spotted her, she’d identified she had a shadow.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t going to spoil her day. The number 15 bus route, she’d read, was an ordinary bus route with exceptional views of London. It wasn’t a side of things she usually saw. She hadn’t had the energy to completely release herself into the throng of London Town, so she became a passenger, enjoying the view and people, and complete lack of any other kind of existence. She’d felt a sense of finality as the bus had drifted around the streets, and wanted to cling to this particular freedom, this fresh perspective, for as long as she could. So she did, enjoying the golden afternoon, the waterloo sunset, and the pulsing nightlife jumping out at her just beyond the bus windows.

Her heart sank a bit as she noted she should probably get off soon, however.

That was when her phone rang. She felt it buzz before she heard it, the bus engine roaring beneath her, and pulled it out of her pocket.

It was him.

“Hello,” she said.

“Please tell me you are not sitting on the bus in your dressing gown,” said James.

“No,” she answered, puzzled. “Of course I’m dressed. How did you know… oh fuck!” she swore, alarming a mother and two small children nearby. “I take it this has got back to Mallory?”

“Where are you?” he asked sternly.

She glanced at the information screen. “Limehouse Station is the next stop,” she informed him. “Not far from the end of the line at Blackwall.”

“Blackwall?”

She bit her lip. He sounded angry.

“Right. Get off there, at the station. I’m coming to get you.”

He hung up, leaving her without a great deal of choice. She considered just staying on the bus again, but the driver had already told her it was against regulations and there were only so many times he could turn a blind eye. _Health and safety_ , he’d said.

She scowled. “Bloody men,” she muttered under her breath. She typed out a text message.

 

‘ _Fuck you. I will be waiting in The Gun_.’

 ---

 

He pulled up, parking illegally, and swept out of the car. What was she playing at? He walked up to the riverside pub, suddenly recognising it. She’d briefed him in here once. Well, now he was going to damn well brief her.

He walked in, the room happily full of revellers, and as far as he could see, so ex-MI6 chiefs. He looked keenly for a shock of white hair.

“You all right, mate?” asked a pretty bar maid.

He winked at her. “Evening. I’m looking for my mother,” he said, relishing the moment. As soon as he said it he saw her, hidden in an alcove, eyes flashing at him from behind a paperback.

“I’ve found her,” he said.

The bar maid smouldered at him and he smirked back, before crossing the room to tower over his recalcitrant ‘mother’.

“I heard that,” she snapped.

“Good,” he replied. Then, assuring only she could hear, “Out. Now.”

She stood coolly, restoring her baseball cap much to James’ chagrin, aware that making a scene would be going far too far, as much as she longed to throw a pint in his face or slap him, or something deliciously coarse. She casually exited the pub, James putting on a broad smile and following her out of the door.

They walked silently to the car which he unlocked remotely, and she ducked in. He did the same and with the door closed, turned to glare at her.

“Ma’am, you are well aware that your behaviour today is against the interests of the...”

“Oh don’t _ma’am_ me!” she said.

“I will ma’am you, _ma’am_ , because I have to. The press are going to run a story about how the ex-chief of MI6 has gone ‘Barmy on a Bus’, the latest in a series of stories committed to exposing our frailty as a service.”

She sighed with frustration. Not her best move, then. “All right,” she said. “Have you come to deliver me to the headmaster’s office? I take it Mallory will want to have a word.”

“He’s left that to me, ma’am.”

She looked at him. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry, James. I’ve put you in a difficult position.”

Her apology affected him immediately, his anger and concern ebbing away. His eyes were kind again.

“What were you doing?” he asked.

“Touring,” she said. “Sight-seeing. Thinking. Hiding. Being someone else for a bit.”

James raised both eyebrows. “Perhaps after this morning it’s what you needed,” he said, watching her fiddle with her bag strap.

“Yes, it was,” she said weakly.

“You can’t do it again.”

“I know.”

“Right then,” he said, turning the keys in the ignition and starting the car. He wordlessly drove them out of the roads of the quayside and towards central London.

She watched as his eyes flicked between the street and the rear view mirror. It reminded her of the drive to Skyfall; him concentrating furiously on the road and her feeling like a troublesome encumbrance. It was the last thing she ever wanted to be, and now here she was being driven home like a teenager who’d stayed out past her curfew.

It was curiously comforting. She didn’t feel young exactly. But she did feel different. Warmer, somehow. Just this once, being fetched, handled, guided. She smiled at the irony that after all this time, here he was in a position of having to reprimand her. She began to relax back into the seat, glancing at him now and then. Was he angry with her? Did he think she was losing it? Had he seen a side of her that would make him change his mind?

He still hadn’t said a word. It unnerved her.

“I appreciate your support today,” she said matter-of-factly. “I appreciate I have probably embarrassed you, if not worried you. I hadn’t appreciated that despite losing my job, or perhaps because of it, that I am still a news worthy public figure. I will try to be more discreet next time I leave the house.”

“You can start by destroying that bloody baseball cap,” he sniped. He expected a quick fire response, but she said nothing, and instead looked away from him and out of the window. He sighed. “I just don’t want you in the line of fire. Any kind of fire.”

“My, how protective you are,” she said, an edge to her voice.  

“You’ve no idea,” he said soundly as they pulled up at some lights. He fixed her with a look. “We talked about me taking care of you, didn’t we? Are you going to let me or not?”

She could feel her heart thumping as she maintained eye contact with him. “Yes,” she said.

The lights turned green and his focus returned to the road for a few seconds. “Good. Then all you have to worry about for now is eating some dinner and having an early night.”

She felt like her heart was still making a hell of a racket inside her chest.

“Are you staying?” she asked.

He smiled warmly. “Yes. Early start tomorrow, but I’d like to stay over if it’s all the same.”

“You may,” she said coolly.

“And keep an eye on you,” he added with a smoulder. “Get you chipped in case you run away again…”

She refused to look at him, but bloomed into a mischievous grin, her cheeks turning pink. They weren’t too far from home. The motion of the car, the events of the day, and this all embracing feeling of sanctuary worked on her like a charm, and she fell into a light sleep knowing he would get her home.


End file.
